Problems with driver upgrade

Question

I have an Inspiron 1100.  In the past couple of months I have been having some serious video problems - Windows Online Crashes, standby/sleep mode freezes, etc.  Dell Support software as well as the Windows Online Crash Analysis has told me that I need to upgrade my video card driver.  Both give me links to Intel to do just that.  However, when I upgrade the driver and then restart as instructed the screen becomes half the size, resolution goes to 640x480 with 16 Bit color and cannot be changed in Control Panel.  I have tried upgrading the driver several times, and my flash BIOS are up to date.  I'm out of ideas.  I've been doing system restore for the past couple of months to cope, but now Windows Automatic Updates is immediately causing the change everytime it runs.  How on earth to I fix this for good?

bacillus · Answer

assuming that the windows update driver is the problem then I would switch off automatic updating and manually install only the windows critical/high priority patches and an needed software optional updates leaving out hardware patches updates.

you can turn off automatic updates by going into control panel>system properties>automatic updates.

new windows updates are, in general, only issued on the second tuesday of each month.

skittles972001 · Answer

Thanks - I just did that today after I figured out that it must be the Windows Automatic Updates that was installing the new driver.  Dell keeps telling me that I need to upgrade the driver, too, in order to prevent Windows crashes, but the upgraded driver they provide me is not working.  I don't want Windows to keep crashing on me - why won't the new driver work?  Any ideas?

Hokiehall · Answer

We had the same problem yesterday with a downloaded video driver upgrade. After installing the upgrade the display was very small and resolution pathetic. I re-installed the original driver and all is well. However, the bubble keeps popping up to install the bad driver. Any way to rid the computer of this file. It must reside on the hard drive somewhere.

Thanks in advance

skittles972001 · Answer

Yes my problem is the same one you have.  Apparently Windows XP Service Pack 2 has some conflict with our original driver and wants us to upgrade it, but the upgraded one is not compatible with our cards or something.  I don't know who to tell or what to do to correct the problem.  I have changed Windows Automatic Updates from automatic download/install to allowing me to manually do that myself.  I have also created a system restore point so that should the driver somehow automatically download I can get my computer back to working order.  Other than that, I don't know what to do.  I, too, was hoping for suggestions.

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Problems with driver upgrade

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